Sunday, June 26, 2016

FOR THE LOVE OF ANIMALS (3): Kyra, the Spy Cat

This
is a bizarre story. I don't expect anyone to believe it, and I'm not
sure I believe it myself. But I will relay the facts of which I am
certain, and the readers may decide for themselves.

Certain
names have been changed to protect the (possibly) innocent persons
involved.

The
conspiracy theory of the story is this: My feline companion, Kyra,
was wired and used unwittingly as a spy.

I
have told this story to only a few friends over the years. Some
laughed, and some (usually former government agents) believed my
conspiracy theory might actually be true.

The
year was 2000. I was living at that time in Woodstock, NY, where I
had moved in 1997, after having spent 2 miserable years in 'motel
hell', with all my possessions in storage, a result of the
government's efforts against me to destabilize my life. Through their
machinations, I was driven from place to place to place, forced to
move house repeatedly due to the circumstances they engineered.

I
had a small cozy house at the base of a mountain (Catskills), where I
lived for 6 years, before relocating to Maine in 2003.

At
that time I had 8 cats. It was a rural area, on a country back road
with little traffic, so I allowed my darlings to roam free outside.

I
had a friend who lived in another state, a scientist and
UFO/paranormal investigator with whom I worked from time to time in
field investigations of UFOs and related phenomena, most especially
in Pine Bush, NY (a hotbed of UFO activity) and surrounding areas.

I'll
call my friend 'Boris'. Boris himself had quite a few cats. But
apparently his wife wasn't a cat lover. One day, in a telephone
conversation, Boris told me that his wife had threatened to “get
rid of” (what a horrible phrase, which I've heard many times from
insensitive persons!) some of his cats, specifically some kittens
recently born.

Outraged,
I said to him, You tell your wife that unless good homes are found
for every single one of those cats, she will have to deal with me.
And I know where you live!

Then,
one day a few months later (it was May, 2000) Boris came to visit me
in Woodstock. Our plan was to go to Pine Bush, not far from where I
lived.

Boris
came into the house and I offered him something to drink. After half
an hour, discussing our plans for the investigation, we had finished
our tea, and he said to me, Come out to the van with me, I want to
show you something. I thought maybe it was some new high- tech gear
for the investigation. I was wrong.

He
slid open the side panel of the van. There, nesting on a blanket, was
a small cat. Boris said to me, I brought a little visitor.

What
do you mean, “a little visitor”? I already have 8 cats!

He
said maybe I could take her on a “trial basis” (how many times
had I heard that one?). This way, she would not be dumped off at a
shelter. Well, of course, it was emotional blackmail. It had happened
many times. Every time someone wanted to “get rid of” a cat, they
would come to me. I could never say no, that was the problem. But I
never once regretted adopting any one of them.

Boris
assured me that he would pay all her medical bills and pay “child
support” for food and other necessities.

So,
it was a done deal. I told him to bring her into the house. I placed
her in a bedroom, with food, water and a litter box, so she would be
separated from the other cats. Cats are territorial, I have found,
much more so than dogs. Dogs can make new friends in the blink of an
eye. Cats are far more discerning, but once they love someone (animal
or human), they can be just as loyal.

But
there was one “condition” to which Boris tried to get me to
agree, which I found rather strange. He told me he did not want me to
have her spayed. He said it was because Kyra came from a bloodline
which he hoped would continue. He had her grandmother and her mother.

I
said, Well, I can't promise you that I won't have her spayed. It
would be irresponsible, and I can't afford to care for any more cats.
But I let the matter drop, for the moment.

Kyra
was 5 months old when she was dropped off as “the little visitor”.
And she stayed with me for more than 15 years, when she passed away
in 2015.

As
it happened, the “child support” never materialized. It took all
my resources just to pay the rent and bills. As for the cats, I
usually had to beg or borrow to support them, especially if there was
a medical emergency. So I never did get around to having Kyra spayed.

Once
she got acclimated, once she made friends with the other cats (aside
from some of the battles, where I had to break up the cat fights, and
Kyra was one of the most fierce warriors I've ever known), I knew it
would be unfair to keep her in the house, while all the others were
going outside.

It
wasn't long before Kyra went into heat. She roamed the neighborhood,
and I'm sure she had many suitors (to put it delicately). But after
3 years in Woodstock, she hadn't got pregnant, for which I thanked my
lucky stars.

I
moved to Maine in 2003. This was a beach house near the ocean, and
not a rural area. But the cats were used to going outside, and it
would have been an exercise in futility trying to keep them inside
the house. So, I let them out and never had any problems. Except one.
That being Kyra. All the other cats had been spayed/neutered years
ago.

The
problem developed when Kyra roamed through the streets, yowling, and
the neighbors started to complain. Some were of the mind that cats
should never be let outside (they are entitled to their opinions),
and some just said they couldn't take the noise. I heard it myself,
it was certainly loud enough to disturb the peace.

So,
finally, I decided that Kyra would simply have to be spayed. Oddly,
she still had never got pregnant, despite her numerous boyfriends in
both neighborhoods. By this time it had been 5 years, so I wondered,
what was up with that?

I
took her to a local veterinary clinic. They performed the operation.
But something strange was reported to me by the vet. She told me that
she found a “foreign object” in Kyra. She had no idea what it
was, nor how it had come to be there. When she asked me if Kyra had
had any surgery before this, I told her, No, not to my knowledge.

The
vet too, thought it strange that Kyra had been roaming free for 5
years, but never got pregnant. But she also explained that the
implanted foreign object would have prevented such an occurrence.

So,
I started to think about all this, seeking some reasonable
explanation. I thought about how Boris tried to dissuade me from
having Kyra spayed. I certainly knew that CIA had all the technology
to implant an animal. Hell, they'd done it to me, so why not my cat?

Around
the same time period, my friend Kathy Kasten (a mutual acquaintance
of mine and Boris's) came to visit me in Maine. I told her the story
of Kyra, in fact she met Kyra while staying at my house.

She
later sent me this story.

CIA
Wired Cat Project

Another
early example of remote-controlling an animal is the AcousticKitty
program from the 1960s. In this project, a cat was surgicallywired
up to serve as a listening device. An original document on
theproject can be found at the National Security Archive.

In
one experiment during the Cold War, a cat, dubbed "Acoustic
Kitty,"was wired up for use as an eavesdropping
platform.

It was hoped that the animal, which was surgically
altered toaccommodate transmitting and control devices, could
listen to secretconversations from window sills, park benches or
dustbins.

Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, said that
Project AcousticKitty was a gruesome creation.

"They
slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tailwas
used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him
andtested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got
hungry,so they put another wire in to override that,'' he
said.

Marchetti said that the first live trial was an
expensivedisaster. The technology is thought to have cost more
than $14million.

He said: "They took it out to a park
and put him out of the van,and a taxi comes and runs him over.
There they were, sitting in thevan with all those dials, and the
cat was dead.''

The document, which was one of 40 to be
declassified from the CIA'sclosely guarded Science and Technology
Directorate, where spyingtechniques are refined, is still partly
censored.

This implies that the CIA was embarrassed about
disclosing all thedetails of Acoustic Kitty, which took five
years to design.

The memo ends by congratulating the team who
worked on the AcousticKitty project for its hard work.

It
says: "The work done on this problem over the years reflects
greatcredit on the personnel who guided it . . . whose energy
andimagination could be models for scientific pioneers.''

By
coincidence, in 1966, a British film called "Spy With a Cold
Nose"featured a dog wired up to eavesdrop on the
Russians.

It was the same year as the Acoustic Kitty was
tested.

Sunday Telegraph

Kyra (center) & Family at her previous home

As
for Boris, I lost contact with him when I moved to Maine. I don't
want to accuse him of being complicit in the implantation of a
foreign object in my cat. But still...considering the whole thing, I
find it suspicious.

I
guess I'll never know for sure what actually happened. Was Kyra the
spy cat planted on me?

All
these years later, I can only say that even were this true, the
people who did this ended up giving me one of the greatest blessings
of my life in the person of Kyra.

So
I can only thank them, regardless of their motives.

Kyra
gave me 15 years of love, joy and comfort. I was privileged to know
her and to be her grandmother and friend.